Being Nervous is Good For You
I often get asked by friends and fans if I get nervous before I get on stage, and my answer for the past 10 years has always been “no.” When I say I don’t get nervous most people think it’s because I’ve got nerves of steel or that my confidence is just so high that I can’t be shaken by being in front of unfamiliar crowds, but the truth is a little more complicated than that.
Early in my career, I wasn’t nervous because I was too nieve to be nervous. I was playing shows in my city but hadn’t really left yet and could still count on knowing the majority of the faces in the crowd. Shows were social events more than shows back then and it was easy to be comfortable. At that point being nervous about performing would’ve meant that I actually understood the long term scope of what I had gotten myself into, and that I wasn’t just out there having fun. It was easy to be comfortable when you don’t know how bad things could go, and what you could lose in terms of fan support by doing really bad shows. Truth be told, if i would’ve actually understood things a bit more at this stage I probably would’ve been nervous enough to piss my pants. Everybody goes thru this stage.